New game-plan for coffee roastery

Moving on: CPR coffee premium roast owners Bill Musgrove, left, and Christina Mackay, are happy to be selling the business to Leon MacDonald while it is on a high.

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He hasn't done his barista training yet, but former All Black Leon MacDonald is passionate about coffee.

So much so that he and his wife, Hayley, have bought CPR, Marlborough's first coffee roasting business started by Blenheim couple Christina Mackay and Bill Musgrove in 2003.

The business began in a small warehouse and has grown to three outlets in Blenheim - the CPR headquarters in Wynen St, and at Marlborough Airport and Marlborough Stadium 2000. It also supplies coffee to six outlets throughout the South Island.

MacDonald will officially take ownership on November 30.

After selling his shares in the Grove Tavern, in Grove Rd, about five months ago, he had been looking for something else to get into, he said.

Someone mentioned talking to Bill and Christina, and everything fell into place, he said.

"It just sort of happened by chance."

The 12 CPR staff will remain and it will be business as usual, Mr MacDonald said.

A coffee enthusiast, he was keen to learn all aspects of the business, while his wife will focus on her new fashion store, No 4 Boutique, which opened on the ground floor of The Forum, in Market Place, last month.

"My social outlet when I was younger was to meet at the pub, but now we've got the kids, we meet at the coffee shop," he said.

CPR customers might even see him behind the counter - "from time to time, maybe".

The 34-year-old Tasman Makos assistant coach said last week he was not planning to have a go as the Crusaders backline coach, primarily because of his family.

He was "definitely tempted" but the timing was wrong and he was keeping the family based in Blenheim.

Mackay said they had not been looking for a buyer, but had always planned on selling one day.

"You're always planning an exit route with a business," she said. "It happened sooner than we thought but it's worked out really well."

They wouldn't go into detail over the sale but Musgrove said it had been important to them that another Marlborough couple took over.

"It happened really quickly but it's been a very low-stress process," he said.